Jeremy Hornik as Philip Roth as JK Rowling...

Multi-talented compadre Jeremy Hornik penned this for the Guardian contest, but missed the deadline by an hour (damn time zones!). It's a Portnoy's Complaint-era Philip Roth's version of the death of Dumbledore; he has graciously allowed me to post it below.

"Philip Roth and the death of Dumbledore

Everyone in Weequahic knew. When a Jew like Dumbledore makes it big (and growing up, he-who-must-not-be-named-dumb-Bill-Horowitz was a capital J Jew, nickels for Israel in the sleeve of his wizard robe) it doesn't stay secret even when he changes his name and starts talking like David Niven. The neighborhood was torn, some so angry that this schmuck had betrayed the neighborhood that they put up flags saying, "Muggle and proud." "Schmucks," my father would mutter, dropping his wand into his briefcase and stomping off to his train. Sandy and I didn't have to ask who.

But he was talking about me! I was muggle to the core! I strained and strained at my little wand but I couldn't get it to rise up, never mind shoot out a shower of sparks. "Try harder," my mother would yell through the locked door. "Rub it with both hands!"

"Go away," I begged.

"Sandy shot a whole stream of owls out of his wand, and he's only six," she yelled.

Dumbledore-Horowitz laughs. "Smashing anecdote," he says, in that Niven that impresses the immigrant parents of wizard children. (Who else would spend that kind of tuition money but strivers, layers of guilt trips, failures by birth who put everything on their children? Oh, Sandy went to Hogwarts.) "Weequahic, you say?"

"You self-hating phony," I mutter, pull the hidden thing out of my bag and let him have it. It's a picture of him, with earlocks and a pointy yarmulke, smiling with his silver kaddish wand. I shriek, "What do you think of that, Horowitz?" Whatever spell he'd cast on himself to obliterate his Jewishness lifted, and for one moment there was a spark of recognition. Or maybe that's how a person looks when they have a massive stroke. I?m no doctor, either."

Well done, Jeremy. All I'd add is a bit about "blonde-as-Doris-Day witches with the tiniest of warts on their pert shiska punims." And perhaps something about a spurt of ectoplasm sizzling on the bathroom lightbulb.

Thank you, Google Alert!

The release of the sixth Harry Potter book has people talking about Barry (according to Google Alert). Here's something from the Suburban Chicago News; and the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette also says something, but you have to register. "Michael Gerber, noted pet-killer and crypto-Fascist..."

Help!

The cover of my comic novel is being prepared, and I need some help. The concept is a dormroom door. Here's my question: what is the funniest stuff that you have seen on a dorm door? Vandalized pictures, flyers, stuff written on white boards--what? My editor said she once saw a piece of pizza stuck on one.

Current students/recent grads, now's your time to show how thoroughly degenerate your university is. Thoughts? Katie, Jack, Mollie, Larry: you must reply or face immediate disinheritance. (My football cards are probably worth something.)